A baseball team of high school girls attempts to make it to the national tournament. The National Boys Tournament.Also known as Princess Nine Kisaragi Girls High Baseball Club, Princess Nine is a 26-episode television anime series first aired in 1998. It was dubbed by ADV Films from 2001 to 2002.Keiko Himuro, president of Kisaragi Girls High School (and its brother school for boys), has a dream. She wants to prove that girls can compete in baseball (not merely softball), and forms a team around Ryo Hayakawa, a brilliant young pitcher. A Ragtag Bunch of Misfits is quickly assembled. They must then overcome sexism, personal problems and oh yeah, an Opposing Sports Team or two on their way to respect and baseball victory.Compare with Taishou Yakyuu Musume.A Character Page has been started. Contributions would be nice.
Affectionate Nickname: Hiroki Takasugi constantly calls Ryo "Ganmo-chan" (Tofu in the English dub) as it's his favorite part of oden. He persists on calling her that despite her vocal objections to it. Late in the series, his grandfather informs Ryo that Hiroki only gives such nicknames to girls he truly likes.
Bad Guys Play Pool: One of the players is recruited while playing pool; she's naturally the team rebel.
Big "NO!": Seira Morimura pulls off this trope at the end of the fourth episode when she found out after the fact that she was tricked by Coach Kido into joining the team.
Bittersweet Ending: While the team doesn't quite make it to the championship game (failing in the quarter-finals), with hints they might go farther next year, they did succeed at getting people to take a girl's baseball team seriously.
Blank White Eyes: Shown by Ryo when she sees Hiroki Takasugi and Izumi Himoru kissing (though it was meant as a "goodbye" kiss, but Ryo misinterprets it and thought Hiroki was cheating on her).
The Chick: Yoko Tokashiki, who isn't really into baseball, or sports in general, but is on the team to get attention for her modeling career.
Cloudcuckoolander: Yuki Azuma, who is never without her faithful "alien" companion Fifi. Nene is pretty out there herself.
Driven to Suicide: Subverted with Yuki. She tried killing herself when she was traumatized by her mean, jealous softball teammates during her Junior High Years for being an MVP and when they were claiming that she was taken all the credit. She couldn't kill herself despite the different attempts that tried.
Exact Words: Principal Mita tells his daughter, Kanako (who he grounded earlier) she can have anything she wants for her birthday, "anything within my power." To his surprise, she demands that he reinstate the baseball team. And he does, to everyone's suprise. And he also ungrounds Kanako.
Fallen Princess: Izumi Himuro, who takes a substantial demotion from star tennis player to join the team.
Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Kanako's father, the school principal. When Kanako is first found out by her father; he grounds her and forbids her to play. That is until his Heel Face Turn when he ends up not being against the baseball team in the eighteenth episode, in which he grants his daughter's birthday wish to reinstate the team. And he also ungrounds her.
Hopeless Suitor: Initially, it's Seishiro, Ryo's best friend since kindergarten, who has a crush on Ryo that he can never adequately express - so she remains completely unaware of his affections. Later in the series, though, he falls for Hikaru instead, and this time it's reciprocal and they share a First Kiss.
Genre Savvy: It's clear that everyone on the team has grown up on sports cliches, but no one more so than the team manager/gofer, Nene.
Seira to Yoko, because of her annoyance with Yoko's lack of sports skills.
Coach Kido, though he may be more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. He used to play both professionally and as an amateur with Ryo's father, and knows exactly what the girls need to be able to do to win. When he wants to teach a lesson, he usually is not nice.
Lampshade Hanging: The show fairly drips with it, no sports cliche is safe.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Izumi delivers a varient of one to an unconscious and in critical condition Ryo Hayakawa, but it was to tell her not to give up and die.
Sdrawkcab Alias: Tami Konaka (syllables reversed), Kanako Mita's alter ego.
Shop Keeper: Shino Hayakawa, Ryo's mother, runs an oden shop.
Show Some Leg: The girls (Well Seira and Hikaru actually) do this to a team from a boys-only school. It works for a couple innings, then the boy's coach points out that girls that pretty probably already have boyfriends. The atmosphere gets ugly REAL quick.
Also played for irony since at that point in the story, none of them have boyfriends.
Sweet Polly Oliver: Koharu Hotta, who disguised herself to play on a boys' baseball team before being found out.
Ryo Hayakawa is the Tomboy to Izumi Himoru's Girly Girl (despite that she played tennis), while Ryo herself is Girly Girl to Koharu Hotta's Tomboy.
Seira Morimura is Tomboy to Yoko Tokashiki's Girly Girl
Hikaru Yoshimoto is the Tomboy to Yuki Azuma's Girly Girl.
Vision Quest: Ryo has one while in critical condition in the hospital, encountering her late father and hearing her teammates (including Izumi, who delivers a variant of "The Reason You Suck" Speech) telling her not to give up.
Wax On, Wax Off: Instead of teaching her to throw her father's "lightning ball," Coach Kido has Ryo till an entire lot all by herself, an exhausting task that she finishes by sheer willpower. Turns out that exhaustion and force of willpower she needed to finish the gardening is exactly what she needs to duplicate the "lightning ball" at the end of a difficult game.
Subverted when he later claims that he was just abusing his position to get her to do his dirty work, then Doubly Subverted when Takasugi points out that the chore was still the best way to train a pitcher's wrist muscles how to snap properly without overstraining.
Wig, Dress, Accent: Kanako Mita has to disguise herself with a green wig to avoid having her father - the principal who disapproves of the team - find out she's on the roster. Lampshaded when she mentions how odd that all it takes is a wig for a father to not recognize his own daughter.
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